“On March 13, I attended an event at my internship, the American Enterprise Institute. The event was an interview with none other than Bill Gates! (See the recording and transcripts here.) Gates gave his prediction that the world will be able to move from ‘poverty to prosperity’ in such a way that there will be no more predominantly poor countries by 2035. He sees this as possible because the percentage of people living in extreme poverty has plummeted by 80 percent in the past forty years and child mortality has fallen to record lows. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has contributed to this encouraging developments with their philanthropic efforts in education and immunization.

And Bill Gates is not the only notable person who has come to speak at AEI over the course of my internship. His Holiness the Dalai Lama visited for two days in February to speak on free enterprise, happiness, and human flourishing. In April, the Right Honorable Liam Fox, a member of the British Parliament and former British Minister of Defense, came to discuss intelligence agencies and personal privacy.

These events with special guests are always open to interns (when there is enough room), and so this is one of the many benefits that I found with interning at the American Enterprise Institute.”

Hannah is a junior at Trinity Christian and will graduate in December 2014. As of now, she is looking into applying for positions at think tanks or on Capitol Hill or into getting involved in campaign work.